Cliff Sutter
Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Tennis, 1929-33
Tulane University
Inducted: 1980
Cliff Sutter won a pair of NCAA Tennis Singles Championships (1930 and 1932) while competing for Tulane University. He is also the only New Orleans native to play the main draw in singles at Wimbledon.
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In 1931, Sutter won the singles championship and was a doubles finalist at the Cincinnati Masters. He also won the doubles title in Cincinnati in 1930. He won the Southern Conference Singles Championship in 1929 and 1930 and the SEC Championship in 1932.
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In 1933, he not only became the first New Orleanian to pay the main draw singles at Wimbledon, but he also defeated Germany’s Baron Gottfried von
Cramm. Von Cramm would later win the French Championship twice (1934 and 1936), reach the Wimbledon final twice (1935 and 1936), and the U.S. final once (1937).
A member of the U.S. Davis Cup team in 1933, Sutter defeated Ricardo Tapia in a match against Mexico. He was also a semifinalist and a four-time
quarterfinalist at the U.S. Nationals and ranked in the top-10 five times between 1930 and 1934. In 1932, he battled Ellsworth Vines in the longest semifinal match in the history of the United States championships – a 4-6, 8-10, 12-10, 10-8, 6-1 loss.
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Sutter would go on to serve in multiple tennis administrative roles, including President of the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association, working to expand the game to the public schools and parks.
Competing with his wife, Suzanne, Sutter captured the national platform tennis mixed doubles championship in 1960. He also teamed up with his brother Ernie (who won NCAA singles championships at Tulane in 1936 and 1937) to win the U.S. Veteran’s Doubles Championship at the Longwood Cricket Club in Boston in 1961.
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Sutter was born August 31, 1910, in New Orleans and died on May 24, 2000, at the age of 89. He is also a member of the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Tennis Hall of Fame and the Southern Tennis Hall of Fame.
